Queen’s Speech

Lord German Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I shall address my remarks to the issue of the development assistance programme. Earlier, my noble friend Lady Northover talked about taking the long view. Taking the long view is important, because then you can reach your objectives. I want to make the case for targeting resource at education and raising the official development budget allocation for education to 15%.

As we wait for the restoration of the 0.7% of GNI for official development assistance, we have to recognise that the budget is being squeezed even more than just the reduction to 0.5%, as our GNI shrinks in real terms. This will make setting priorities difficult. Globally, even before the pandemic, 258 million children received no schooling at all, and hundreds of millions more were in school but experiencing conditions that prevented their learning. Education is every child’s right. Education has the power to protect and transform lives, and it is the foundation for sustainable development.

Last year, as G7 president, the UK hosted the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education and made improving access in low and middle-income countries a priority, but as we emerge from the global pandemic, this laudable priority is under threat because of the huge shortage of qualified teachers. Globally, there are too few qualified teachers, and this is one of the greatest barriers to education in poor countries. UNESCO estimates that 69 million new qualified teachers must be recruited by 2030 to enable all children to have a decent education. In countries such as Djibouti, Malawi, Namibia, Senegal, South Sudan, Togo and Zimbabwe, 95% or more of the national education budget is spent on teachers’ salaries—yet teacher pay is low, and often below the poverty line.

In Zimbabwe, for example, teachers’ salaries are about $335 per month—less than the amount needed to buy food and other items to support a family of five. One deeply concerned teacher from Zimbabwe said:

“teachers feel as if they have become beggars. Morale is at its lowest. … We go to work in tattered clothes, and we are living in squalid conditions.”

Recruiting more teachers at these pay levels is going to be a very difficult task indeed.

Some 38% of primary school teachers and 55% of secondary school teachers in sub–Saharan Africa are untrained, and many are teaching classes of 70 and more pupils. I have seen two classes of 70 sitting back to back, with a teacher facing them and then moving round to the other side of the room to continue teaching the other half of a class of well over 140 children. If you believe that education is the way out of poverty and the foundation for sustainable development, providing qualified teachers must be a top priority. We have to help build a better future, and that starts with education delivered by a qualified teacher.

I would be grateful if the Minister in replying could tell the House what assessment the Government have made of the global teacher shortage, so that the global targets they set in 2021 as president of the G7 will be met. One of these targets is to get 40 million more girls into education—and that alone would mean recruiting and training 1.8 million more teachers. Do the Government recognise that teachers are one of the greatest levers in delivering global education ambitions? If so, does the Minister agree that to help tackle the teacher shortage, there is a need for an overarching UK government policy on recruiting more teachers globally? Improving and providing decent education is the route out of poverty and the pathway to prosperity.

Integrated Review: Development Aid

Lord German Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord German (LD) [V]]

I refer to my interests in the register. Today’s news that the Government’s global health priority is virtually excluding water, sanitation and hygiene projects shows the impact of the cuts to international aid. Good public health is an essential element of community resilience to disease and infection —just look at the health impact on schools with no running water, where toilet and eating activity is undertaken without any handwashing.

The sad reality is that we now have a smaller pot of money for global development, and added to that is the other reality that big international long-term commitments will take the lion’s share of this smaller pot. This means that smaller charities in the UK will be squeezed out of delivering much-valued projects that are closer to the communities they serve. These are the smaller charities that deliver better value for money than large organisations.

The latest round of Small Charities Challenge Fund and community partnership grant applications has been paused indefinitely. Without confirmation that successful grant applications would be honoured, many charities face having to make immediate decisions on staffing and resources, including redundancies.

These are projects where small charities have invested hundreds of hours in the development and preparation of projects approved by the Government but now in limbo. Pulling the plug on approved projects is costly and damaging to small charities; it is also damaging to the communities they serve in the poorest parts of the world. They now have no hope of recovering the nugatory work they have put into developing projects that the Government determined were valuable. This has devastatingly dashed the hopes of the people who were to be the beneficiaries of these projects.

What reassurance can the Minister give on the future of the Small Charities Challenge Fund and the Community Partnership grant scheme, including those projects that have received approval but no payments as yet?

Food and Drink: Waste Prevention

Lord German Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

I am happy to echo my noble friend’s thanks and congratulations to the water sector. Defra was pleased to confirm that it will waive the usual charge to publicans—around £1,000 to £1,500—for disposing of spoiled beer. It is also taking steps to streamline the beer disposal application process and minimise the administrative burden on publicans. Those steps include allowing bulk applications from pubs and redeploying teams from elsewhere in water companies to focus solely on processing applications from pubs. She is right to identify a possible solution to the problem of the weight of these barrels, which are hard to remove by hand, but other options are being explored as well.

[Lord German (LD) [V]]

My Lords, nearly £1 a litre of duty is being lost through ullage of beer and the problem of recycling is getting up to an industrial scale, so will the Minister use the duty on beer to look at the potential for industrial-scale recycling, particularly for the land-based and energy uses such as microbial fuel or biogas?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park [V]]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify those as useful alternatives. There are big markets for anaerobic digestion and animal feed, so there is no reason why the repurposing of spoiled beer cannot be managed on an industrial scale. Clearly, this took us by storm almost overnight and is a problem we have not had to deal with in the past. I will absolutely take his suggestion back to my department and the Treasury, which ultimately makes these decisions, and ensure that it is properly looked at.

Yemen: Humanitarian Aid Funding

Lord German Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I have already alluded to the fact that we are working through UN agencies, and in particular the World Health Organization. However, I implore all parties, including the Houthis, who control the major part of the distribution network, to ensure that we can provide the support and aid that is required across the country.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, already the United Nations has had to suspend payments for 10,000 front-line healthcare workers and halve the food rations for 8.5 million people. What leverage does the Minister think that he and the Government have to bridge this gap, given that UK aid is the same as that given by the US and the third-largest of all the funders in the world? Surely this gives us some increased leverage. Where does he assess that that potential lies?

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

Can Members mute their microphones if they are not speaking? There is a lot of feedback.